Lie Bialgebras
Arun Ram
Department of Mathematics and Statistics
University of Melbourne
Parkville, VIC 3010 Australia
aram@unimelb.edu.au
Last updates: 21 March 2011
Lie bialgebras
1.1 A
Lie bialgebra is a Lie algebra with bracket
and cobracket
such that
-
with bracket
is a Lie algebra, and
-
satisfies the -cocycle condition,
In 1),
is the induced mapping on the dual spaces. Given an element
let us let
denote the evaluation of
on the element
.
Then
is given explicitly by
for all
.
Note that
is a well defined map since
(even if
is infinite dimensional).
1.2 An element
determines a -coboundary
given by
,
for all . Since we know that every -coboundary is a -cocycle. Thus determines a 1-cocycle and posibly a bialgebra structure on . Thus it is a natural question:
-
Given an element , what conditions should we place on to guarantee that the map
determined by
,
determines a Lie bialgebra structure on ?
This question is answered by the following proposition:
Let be a Lie algebra, let and define a map
by
.
Let
and let
so that .
-
The map
satisfies the skew-symmetric condition if and only if
for all .
-
Assume that is
invariant. Then satisfies the Jacobi identity if and only if
for all .
If
then the notation above is
Condition a) states that
is -invariant and condition b) states that
is -invariant.
1.4 A quasitraingular Lie bialgebra is a pair
such that is a Lie bialgebra,
,
the cobraket in is equal to and satisfies
i.e,
.
A triangular Lie bialgebra is a pair such that
is a Lie bialgebra, , the cobracket in is equal to and satisfies
The equation
is the classical Yang-Baxter equation (CYBE).
1.5
If is a semisimple Lie algebra over a field of characteristic , then it follows from Whitehead's lemma ([J] III §7 Lemma 3 p.77 and Thm. 13 p.95) that
=0
for all finite dimensional -modules . Thus all -cocycles are coboundaries; in this case, if
is any linear map which satisfies the -cocycle condition then there is an element
such that
for all .
Manin triples and the double
2.1 Let
be a symmetric bilinear form on a vector space , i.e.
for all .
The form is nondegenerate if the map given by
is an isomorphism. Alternatively, the form
is invariant if for every , there is a such that . A third way to say it is that is invariant if the null space of the form
is . A fourht way to say it is that the matrix of the form (with respect to any fixed basis of ) has nonzero determininant.
A subspace of is isotropic if
for all .
Given vector spaces and with symmetric bilinear forms
and
respectively then the vector space
has a bilinear form given by
for all and
.
In particular, if is a vector space with a bilinear form then has a bilinear form given by
for all .
Suppose that the vector space is a Lie algebra. The form is invariant if
for all
2.2 A Manin triple is a triple
such that
-
is a Lie algebra with a nondegenerat invariant symmetric bilinear form
and
-
and
are isotropic Lie subalgebra of .
-
as vector spaces.
Let
be a Manin triple. Then is a Lie algebra with cobracket
determined by the equation
for all and all
.
In other words, is the adjoint of the bracket on .
Let be a Lie bialgebra. Then the triple
is a Manin triple where
-
The bilinear form
on
is given by
for all
and all
,
and
-
The bracket on
is determined by the formulas
where and
.
This is essentially the only way to define things so that the bracket on is the dual of the cobracket on and so that the bilinear form is invariant. The Lie algebra
constructed from the the Lie bialgebra is called the double corresponding to the Lie algebra .
The previous two propositions show that there is a one-to-one correspondence between Lie bialgebras and Manin triples.
Let be a Lie bialgebra and
be the double of . Let
be a basis of and let
be the dual basis in . Define
Then
-
The element does not depend on the choice of basis of .
-
satisfies the CYBE.
-
is a quasitriangular Lie bialgebra.
Proofs
Let be a Lie algebra, let and define a map
by
.
Let
and let
so that .
-
The map
satisfies the skew-symmetric condition if and only if
for all .
-
Assume that is
invariant. Then satisfies the Jacobi identity if and only if
for all .
|
|
Proof:
|
|
-
The following computation shows that
if and only if
for all
.
-
The proof will be done in several steps.
Step 1. .
Step 2. .
Step 3. If is invariant then
is invariant.
Step 4. If
then satisfies the Jacobi identity if and only if
is invariant.
Punchline. Let us show that these 4 steps are sufficient to prove the result. By step 3, is invariant. Thus by step 2, is invariant if and only if is. Now and so by step 4 satisfies the Jacobi identity if and only if is invariant. Since , it follows that satifies the Jacobi identity if and only if is invariant.
Step 1. Since is invariant we have that
Step 2. Using the fact that is invariant and the fact that
,
we get
Step 3. Suppose that
. Then
By arguing similarly for the other terms one shows that
is an invariant element of .
Step 4. Assume that
so that
or equivalently that
.
Let us first calculate
Now consider the sum
For simplicity, write only the terms in this sum which have a in the first tensor slot,
The first term is equal to
and the second term is equal to
.
For the third term, applying the skew symmetry relation and then switching the indices and ,
For the fourth term, apllying the skew-symmetry relation twice gives
Now it is clear that the sum of the third and fourth terms is, by the Jacobi identity
.
The result now follows by symmetry.
This completes the proof of Proposition (1.1).
|
Let
be a Manin triple. Then is a Lie bialgebra with cobracket
determined by the equation
for all and all
. In other words,
is the adjoint of the bracket on .
|
|
Proof:
|
|
It is clear from the fact that delta is the adjoint of the bracket on that is a cobracket on . It remains to check the cocycle condition.
If then and shall denote the elements of and respectively such that . Then we have that, for any
,
Similarly,
Thus
On the other hand we have that for any
and
It follows from this computation oand the previous one that
for all
.
It follows that is a Lie bialgebra.
|
Let
be a Lie bialgebra. Then the triple
is a Manin triple where
-
The bilinear form on
is given by
for all
and all
-
The bracket on
is determined by the formulas
where and
.
|
|
Proof:
|
|
The facts, is Lie subalgebra of
,
the bilinear form is invariant, the bracket of
satisfies the skew-symmetry condition, all follow directly form the definitions. Only the Jacobi identity really needs a proof.
If all three elements in the Jacobi sum are in or all three are in then the Jacobi identity follows immediately from the Jacobi identity for these Lie subalgebras. Suppose two indices are in and the third is in . THen we have that, for any and
,
by the Jacobi identity in . In the other case we have, for any
and
,
In this computation we are using the -cocycle condition on and the fact that
which was proved in the proof of Proposition (2.3).
The case of the Jacobi identity where two of the indices are in and one is in is proved similarly. Thus the bracket on
satisfies the Jacobi identity and
is a Lie algebra with an invariant bilinear form.
|
Let be a Lie bialgebra and let
be the double of . Let
be a basis of and
be the dual basis in . Define
Then
-
The element does not depend on the choice of basis
of .
-
satisfies the CYBE.
-
is a quasitriangular Lie bialgebra.
|
|
Proof:
|
|
-
Suppose that
is another basis of and that
is the dual basis in . Then
Thus the element is independent of the choice of basis.
-
Let us check that satisfies the CYBE.
-
In view of Proposition () we only need to show that
for all . Let
. Then
After reindexing we have
Now note that, by invariance of the inner product we have that
It follows that
.
The case when is proved similarly. The result follows.
|
References
The motivating reference is
[D]
V.G. Drinfeld, Quantum Groups, Vol. 1 of Proccedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians (Berkeley, Calif., 1986). Amer. Math. Soc., Providence, RI, 1987, pp. 198–820.
MR0934283
There is a detailed exposition of Lie bialgebras in the following article
[DHL]
H.-D. Doebner, Hennig, J. D. and W. Lücke,
Mathematical guide to quantum groups, Quantum groups (Clausthal, 1989),
Lecture Notes in Phys., 370, Springer, Berlin, 1990, pp. 29–63.
MR1201823
[J]
N. Jacobson, Lie algebras, Interscience Publishers, New York, 1962.
page history